PiXiE deployment grows at San Diego County TV Network

Simple and reliable live backhaul is a necessity for the busy broadcast engineer

When new live HDSDI feeds are planned for backhaul between locations, San Diego County turns to Path 1 and the innovative PiXiE-E1 encoder & PiXiE-D1 decoder.

The County of San Diego government is the 2nd largest employer in the city (20,000+) and ranked 2nd in California for area (4500+ m2). Almost 3.5 M people now live within its boundaries. Here you can find unique communities beside ocean sanctuaries, mountain peaks, huge deserts and international borders. In other words, the County of San Diego administers to a very diverse community.

Some people say San Diego is paradise and keeping it that way is the responsibility of the San Diego County public services. Among dozens of departments required to make the county safe is the County Communications Office and its award-winning County News Center, or CNC TV.

It is the goal of CNC TV to make the County of San Diego government accessible to citizens and to educate and energize the public while providing the real story of County government in action.

The Challenge

As with many other vibrant city centers, San Diego County outgrew its downtown facility and needed more space opting to build additional facilities in the urban reaches. Now, keeping the CNC TV signals up and running between facilities requires adapting to the new IP data networks connecting the new Operations Center with the old Administration Building. For example, San Diego County Operations Center hosts emergency response briefings including camera feeds backhaul to CNC TV for a turn around to various live and on-demand outlets (local PEGs and online).

Central to the challenge was designing a video plant that meets constraints for audio & video quality, the simplicity of use and always-on reliability. Equipment purchase price is important and so are the operational cost savings - considering CNC TVs small staff.

The project emphasized simplicity and reliability in part because the new and growing IP network adds some risk associated with convergence and flexibility. The network design team was looking for video over IP Adapters that only need minimum configuration so their attention can be focused elsewhere.

The Solution

Path 1’s IP video appliances have been the benchmark standard for SD/HDSDI to IP Networks adaptation since first being used by Vyvx (Level 3) during 2004 Super Bowl. Today, the company’s new PiXiE-E1 encoder is capable of compressing input broadcast signals using AVC/AAC at multiple bitrates and then serving adaptive bit rate (ABR) Internet streams to PiXiE-D1 decoders. The result is a high-quality, robust broadcast signal delivered over the Internet.

San Diego County has deployed the PiXiE -E1 encoders and PiXiE-D1 decoders for point-to-point primary live backhaul. PiXiE was chosen by San Diego County because it provides the award-winning CNC TV with a hardware and software solution designed and manufactured with an obvious focus on simplicity and reliability.

The PiXiE encoder requires no setup other than the network interface and the maximum encoding bit rate, further increasing operational efficiency for San Diego County. Using one or more PiXiE decoders and the IP address for the PiXiE encoder, San Diego County can simultaneously pull video across the shared public Internet at the highest possible quality.